Currently, most large enterprises with field service operations and field service management responsibilities are inventorying and managing their assets (such as tools, test sets, circuit boards, set-top boxes, termite bait stations, network interface devices, employee ID badges, and satellite TV antennas) in various and sometimes inefficient ways. This asset inventory and location management has been restricted to standard warehouse buildings where manual inventory processes are used to track the status and location of items. Examples of currently used technology for inventorying and managing company assets at fixed sites, such as enterprise warehouses and store rooms, are bar code scanning, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, and manually prepared spreadsheets.
Assets used in a field service operation entering the field service company supply chain typically have excellent documentation, inventory, and accountability at the initial point of receipt, such as the central warehouse or at the organization that directly receives an item (e.g. the directly delivered test set). However, once there is movement of that asset beyond the initial point of entry into a field service company control, inventory, and accountability become a real problem regarding loss prevention, leakage, and lack of asset knowledge leading to overstock.
Companies, or organizations within an enterprise that deliver field service or that have technology driven services related infrastructure assets, usually receive products and materials in their central warehouse. However, there is ample opportunity for inventory failure and accountability which, unfortunately applies to both high value and low value product and materials. In some cases, certain products and materials, such as a needed test set, are shipped directly from the supplier to a work center location where that item may be used or distributed further to field service technicians. In those situations accountability and inventory are distributed and even more difficult for a field service operation to manage.
Today field service operations, whether they are involved in communications services, heating-ventilation-air conditioning (HVAC) services, plumbing services, or termite control services, have field service technicians or engineers that have assets which go in motion, i.e. become “kinematic.” The very nature of “field service” means that technicians are out with customers and partners, i.e. “in the field.” Today assets used by field service technicians are not tracked with the kind of precision needed for proper accountability and control. In some cases today, where companies have tried to implement accountability and control measures, increases in labor costs and human intervention have been known to cause errors and reduce the accuracy of these control measures.